James Franklin's Next Challenge: Keeping Penn State's Locker Room Together

Looking for return on their investment

The Nittany Lions invested everything into the 2025 season. They returned multiple key starters, including quarterback Drew Allar, running backs Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen and defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton, all NFL prospects after last year.

They made defensive coordinator Jim Knowles the nation’s highest-paid assistant coach, giving him a contract worth more than $9 million over three years. And Franklin said this team had the best combination of personnel, players and staff, of his Penn State tenure. 

But five games into the year, the Nittany Lions are 3-2 and coming off the worst loss of Franklin’s Penn State career. The game vs. UCLA crashed their chances of returning to the postseason and severed fans from hope. It also could lead to a splintered locker room. 

“Is there hurt in the locker room? Yes, no doubt about it,” Franklin said two days after the game. “Was there hurt on Sunday? Yeah, no doubt about it. And there should be. But we’ve got a strong group, a resilient group. We’ve got a bunch of leaders that have been through adversity in their past. So no, I don't have those concerns [about losing the locker room] right now.”

“Right now” are the key words. Penn State hosts Northwestern on Saturday to begin seven weeks of elimination games. Franklin and his leaders must change the environment quickly. However, the contrast between some of Franklin’s recent actions on the field spoke louder than his words.

For example, Franklin approached Drew Allar immediately after the quarterback threw a game-ending interception against Oregon . Franklin spoke with Allar, moved to shake hands with Ducks coach Dan Lanning, then returned to Allar to comfort him. He was by Allar’s side for nearly the entire postgame. But, as noted above, that wasn’t the case after Penn State’s loss to UCLA, when Franklin appeared more distant.

Elsewhere, Penn State greeted the media with something new at practice last Wednesday. During its weekly availability session, the program lit a digital sign with its “1-0” message, which appeared like an attempt to convince those attending that everything was OK and that the team had moved on from Oregon. 

Which wasn’t the case after all. Following the UCLA game, Franklin said that the team obviously didn’t handle the White Out defeat well. 

“We’ve got to tune out all the outside noise. I thought our guys worked hard at doing that last week, but obviously not well enough. Not well enough,” Franklin said postgame in Pasadena. “So we’ve got to stick together. The coaches, the players in the locker room, offense, defense and special teams. The reality is, we didn't play well enough in all three phases to win the game, and there's going to be a lot out there to divide, divide, divide, and we’ve got to tune all that out and stick together.”

The Nittany Lions seek change

The players agreed that they didn’t handle the Oregon loss well. Defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton said the team wasn’t ready to play against UCLA, and linebacker Dom DeLuca made a revealing comment.

“[We] just can’t make this a routine,” DeLuca said. “We can’t just keep doing this. I mean, we’ve just got to come back to work. We’ve got to prepare, we’ve got to ask questions where we’re confused, or even get in the film room more and make sure everyone is on the same page and prepare better.”

Linebacker Amare Campbell added that the team lacked focus against UCLA. That starts with Franklin and how he holds himself and his team accountable. 

“It's how we game plan, it's how we practice, it's how we develop. It's holding everybody in the building accountable,” Franklin said on Monday regarding what he has to do better. “... The reality is we're talking about [losses] right now, and the last two weeks weren't good enough, and ultimately I'm responsible.

"I hired the staff. We've recruited the players. I'm ultimately responsible for all of it, offensively, defensively, special teams. I'm there to support those guys. I'm there to challenge [them]. I'm there to hold everybody accountable. And that's the nature of my job, and I totally get that and totally take responsibility for it.”

Since the loss, players quickly backed Franklin. Allar said Franklin and the staff have built “one of the best cultures in college football.” He added that there’s no other team or coaching staff he’d rather be with in this situation. 

Safety Zakee Wheatley used the word “Family” to describe the team during a Zoom call on Tuesday. He said the club has great leaders, starting with Franklin. Left tackle Drew Shelton shared similar thoughts.

“That’s the easy thing to do [pointing fingers],” Shelton said. “That’s the easy way out, to say it’s their fault. But collectively it’s all of us. We’ve got to be better as a whole, and I think we all know that. Coach Franklin has done a great job of expressing that, that it’s all of us. It’s not us against each other; it’s us against everyone else. We have to be better collectively, and that’s what it’s going to take.”

As Penn State sits on the brink of playoff elimination, the locker room hasn’t surrendered yet, something Franklin referred to this week.

"This is a resilient group,” he said. “I think when you watch the game — obviously we have two losses — but there's no signs of [losing the locker room] on tape. Our guys battled and played really hard. We didn't always play smart, but we battled.”

Most of that has to do with Franklin and his philosophy.  But down the line, if they lose another heartbreaker, Franklin’s voice of togetherness might carry less weight. The head coach already has moved differently in some of his actions before and after the loss to UCLA. We’ll see whether that changes against Northwestern.